


kill them with kindness? well you’re not saving me with hatred

by penxacola



Category: Stranger Things - Fandom
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 15:47:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20176795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penxacola/pseuds/penxacola
Summary: After Billy's death, Max thought about California and him, their love and hatred, bonding and trauma. She wanted to bring him back to where he belong.





	kill them with kindness? well you’re not saving me with hatred

**Author's Note:**

> I remember seeing Sadie's interview, about why Max could still be so *optimistic* after Billy's death (since she could still sing w/ Lucas). She said that Max was definitely heart-broken, but at the same time she learnt how to hide her true feelings. I suddenly wanted to write a story about Billy n Max.  
This might seems a bit OOC at the start, but I promise Billy is still the same Billy.  
*Title came from a casual graffiti i saw in Cali  
*English is not my first language, so there might be tons of typo/grammar mistakes. sry about that :/

1.

After Billy’s death, I had a relatively vague memory of that week. I sat on my bed in a daze, while mom crying in the living room, and my step-father smoked endlessly. Hoarse whisper came from TV, the female anchor sometimes would talk about that young “townie” Billy Hargrove, and his name was buried in a long list of missing people. Maybe after five years, when those high school girls who had a brief crush on him get married, he might become their topics on parties, something like “the boy died in my hometown’s mysterious accident”.

As far as I could remember, summer in 1985 was stuffily hot. I barely open my window and curtain. Lucas and Will sometimes came and knocked, but I never answer. Sometimes I spoke to El through the radio - she was still in the hospital. She asked me, Max, where do you think Hopper go, is he falling like Heather into some deep darkness?

I didn’t know how to answer that, so I asked her, do you think mom’s really crying for Billy’s death? When I spoke of the word “death”, I heard the sound of trembling scratch from the speaker, and then she said, yes, I think so.

  
At the end of that week, autopsy was over, and the police came to inform us of the news. I still had a feeling, when I saw that police car stopped in front door, the man came down would be Hopper. And then Neil opened the door, the new sheriff was much more thinner than him. He already put that shiny badge on. When they were talking, I slipped through the hallway, and sneaked into Billy’s room without making any noise. This room has hosted some local journalists, and mom cleaned the room. Now, it doesn't look or smell like “Billy” at all. No astrays, no posters, no smell of cigarette and cologne. I opened his drawers, summer shirts, tight jeans, swim suits (he loved summer), accessories. And of course, some Parliament cigarettes, BIC lighters, Play Boy posters. I held these, and went out of his room.

The new sheriff was talking about Billy’s funeral. “There will be a lot of press”, he grabbed a brownie from the table, “Not only from Indiana, some are from Chicago and NYC. Maybe even foreign media. You know - they care about these kinds of stuff, governments' conspiracies, strange things in small town. Mr.Hargrove’s body was the only one found. ” I listened to all these bullshit, he couldn’t stop playing the golden star on his new badge. I wanted to scream, to yell at him. I wanted to tell them all, hey you fucking bitches, this isn't a show. You pretend to care, but who truly loves him.  
I laid on the wall and tried to hold all these anger back, but mom found me. She called my name:  
“Maxine? Dear?”  
I stood out, the sheriff turned his head and greeted me, “Hi Maxine.” I looked at the plastic bag on the table with rest of the brownies in it - that was Billy’s. Probably one of his weed desserts collection. I put my palm down from the wall, smiled to them. “Please, call me Max,” and then rushed through the room, took that bag of things, went out of the door. I glanced at myself in the window - it was at dusk, the glass reflected my face. I was still wearing my red volleyball uniform from primary school, hair as messy as bird’s nest, dark circle under my eyes. For countless times today, I thought of Billy, maybe he would call me sloven shithead.  
I smiled to myself in the windows, dashed down the front porch, ran for my bike.


End file.
